Dr. Michele Furtado Araujo, a periodontology resident, and Dr. Aniket Jadhav, a postdoctoral student in the Section of Oral and Maxillofacial Radiology, each accepted a $2,500 award at the Auxiliary’s annual membership meeting June 21. Dean Monty MacNeil and professor Art Hand also attended on behalf of the UConn School of Dental Medicine to thank the Auxiliary for its continuing support of dental students and residents.

The Auxiliary, which historically has set aside $50,000 annually for scholarships, now is using most of that amount to help medical, dental and nursing students travel to conferences and seminars related to their specialties.

“This way we’ll be able to help more students,” says Auxiliary Facilitator Irene Engel.

Engel also announced that The Family Place at Homewood Suites, the Auxiliary program offering complimentary lodging for parents of newborns requiring intensive care, will continue under the management of the Connecticut Children’s Medical Center. In September, Connecticut Children’s took over management of the UConn Health Center’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit as part of a regionalization plan under Bioscience Connecticut.

“Like the Creative Child Center and the art collection, this is yet another of the good deeds the Auxiliary is proud to have started, and we’re very pleased it will live on,” Engel says.

In place of the Homewood Suites program, the Auxiliary will focus on two new undertakings with the UConn Foundation to offer assistance to those who’ve been touched by cancer:

A $3,000 pledge will establish a flexible fund to assist patients with needs such as medical co-pays, medications, health insurance, travel expenses, groceries, utilities, rent/mortgage or other necessary expenses.